From NPR: In Praise Of Broadway's Orchestrators
By Susan Stamberg
The article asks, “Ever hear of Sid Ramin, Jonathan Tunick, Don Walker, Russell Bennett or Ralph Burns?”
Why, yes, I have. And might I add that you left out Michael Gibson, Harold Wheeler, and to an extent, Trude Rittman.
Tony countdown begins and theater geeks around this time lobby for a new category. The orchestrator category at the Tony's is only 12 years old. Only recently have they divided the design categories into plays and musicals. This year, talk was mostly about adding a Best Ensemble category. Mine would be for Best Musical Direction. I grant that the criteria for nominees in that category would be hard to delineate. Just nominate the original musical directors of a new production? Will “plays with music” qualify? All I really want is for Paul Gemignani to get some recognition from Antoinette Perry.
1 comment:
Orchestration is subtle.
You can't really treat it independent of the melody (cue: Rimsky-Korsakov or Debussy or Stravinsky or Boulez) so one wonders if one should even award a prize when the melody is fixed and the orchestration is a straight output of Rimsky-Korsakov's textbook (or in a modern context, Walter Piston's.)
It works the reverse way too. The melody may be crappy but the orchestration may totally redeem it. So what?
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